


Jimmy

by humandoodad



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spoilers, Darcy and Jane are back in New Mexico, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humandoodad/pseuds/humandoodad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy adopts a new intern.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jimmy

**Author's Note:**

> There's really nothing to this but silliness. Unbeta'd silliness.

"Jane? Jane! Jaaaaaane?"

Jane Foster tried her best to ignore Darcy's shouting. She was on the verge of solving an equation she'd been struggling with all morning and focus was absolutely essential.

"Jaaaaane? Jane! Hey, Jane! I found a new intern!"

"What?" That totally jarred her from her line of thinking and she lost the solution that had been on the tip of her brain. "Darcy, did you say something about an intern?" Tucking her pen behind her ear, she spun around on her chair.

"Ta daaaaa." Darcy did a Price is Right Model pose to exhibit the young man at her side. He was on the small side, even when you were using normal people standards and not super hero standards, with sandy blonde curls and a sort of bewildered expression.

"I thought-- Didn't you say you were going to get lunch? I'm pretty sure you said something about lunch a while ago. That's not lunch."

"What can I say? I'm a multitasker. I found him in the diner."

Jane scrubbed a hand over her face. "You can't just pluck people off the street--"

"Out of the diner," Darcy corrected.

"--and make them your intern. Remember Ian? Remember how he turned out to be... the big H." She made fang gesture with two hooked fingers. Like a snake. Hydra. Snakes. 

"This one fixed the Space Stuff Detector though. He didn't even whack it against the table! He had his own tools." She elbowed him. "Show her your tools!"

Obediently, the guy pulled a small wallet out of his jacket pocket and unzipped it. Inside were a variety of basic tools for working on electronics and circuitry.

"You let a stranger mess with my Tachyonimeter? Why would you let a stranger mess with my Tachyonimeter? Why did you have my Tachyonimeter at the diner?"

"She really likes saying Tachyonimeter," Darcy told the stranger, who nodded. "It started yelling at me, but the screen was black, even after I whacked it a couple times. He noticed and he fixed it."

"Look..." Jane turned to the guy. "I'm impressed with your skill with electronics, but we don't actually need an intern. Darcy shouldn't have drug you away from whatever you were doing."

"I didn't drag. I asked. He nodded. We strolled back here together. I'm going to call him Jimmy."

"Ji-- I'm sure he has a name, Darcy. No, please, that equipment is very sensitive. Darcy, he's going to mess with the Barometric Spectrometer." In fact, he was already peeling at the ducktape that held its front panel on.

"It's fine, Janey. He doesn't talk and he doesn't have any ID, so I'm calling him Jimmy. You don't mind, right, Jimmy?"

Jimmy-- no, Jane wasn't going to allow herself to think of him by that name-- the prospective, but not likely to stay, intern looked up from poking at the Barometric Spectrometer, smiled and shrugged.

"See? If he was one of the evils, he'd have this great backstory and ID and be charmingly unassuming, instead of charmingly eccentric and kind of mysterious." 

"What if he's escaped from some... home or something?" That drew his attention again and he scowled at Jane. "Not that there's anything wrong with that! I mean, being in a home. Erik was in a home."

"And we helped bust him out of there!" Darcy pointed out. "We're experienced."

"This is not a _puppy_ , Darcy. You can't just say 'He followed me home, can we keep him?'"

"Well, Ian..."

"You can't do it _again_. Ian, at least, was from a school. You got him from the intern pound! This one is from the intern alley!" She'd realized halfway in how ridiculous she was sounding, but she couldn't leave the metaphor half finished, could she?

"And look how Ian turned out! My mom found all her cats as strays and they were great cats! I mean, they all had their quirks, but they never turned out to be evil nazis."

"Ix-nay on the azi-nays," Jane hissed. The stray intern was looking at them again, all wide, sad eyes. He really did remind Jane of a puppy. A poor, lost... "No. Nope. No. Darcy, take him back, take him--" The Barometric Spectrometer made a binging noise. "What did he do to my machine? It's never made that noise before." She crowded him aside to inspect what he'd done. He'd probably convinced it to take some sort of false reading that made it bing. Great, now she wouldn't have accurate data from it for weeks, maybe months, maybe-- "These numbers look right."

"And it bings now! Jimmy, what does the bing mean?" Darcy came to investigate too, even though she had no real skill at electronic engineering and wouldn't know what to look for if it bit her. Programming, Jane admitted, she could do, but soldering and rewiring had always been up to Jane. Jimmy only smiled and went back to poking about in the machine's innards. "We'd better keep him, right? What if the bing is annoying and he's the only one who knows how to make it stop?"

This was a terrible idea. But if they were going to make it out to the desert in time to get the readings they were scheduled to take tonight, Jane didn't have time to argue for much longer. He could probably help carry things, even though he didn't look all that much stronger than Darcy or Jane herself. She eyed him thoughtfully.

And what if the machine did become annoying? Or even more useful?

"Fine. Jimmy can stay. _On a trial basis_. And he's your responsibility. I have work to do, I can't be watching him."

"Already added him to my feeding and watering schedule, Boss-Lady." Darcy saluted, beaming widely.

\------

The Barometric Spectrometer binged. "Jimmy! Jimmy! Put down the soldering gun and get me the Tachyonimeter!" Jane made a grabby hand motion behind her back as she strode over to the spectrometer and started noting down its readings. She needed to compare the readings, to see what correlation--

"Fitz! Fitz, there you are!" Jane ignored the new voice, thinking vaguely it must be Darcy putting on an accent. She did stuff like that and she'd been very into Jane Austen movies recently.

"Whoa, whoa hey, hands off my intern, girly!" But wait, Darcy wouldn't talk to herself. Well, not when she had Jimmy to talk to. Jane turned.

"I'm terribly sorry but you're mistaken. Fitz isn't an intern."

"Excuse me, who are you and what do you want? The Barometric Spectrometer binged, we're a little busy," said Jane. Jimmy held out the Tachyonimeter to her. "Thank you, Jimmy."

"And his name's not Jimmy... You're Doctor Foster, aren't you? Jane Foster. Oh my goodness. I'm Jemma Simmons. Doctor Jemma Simmons. It's not likely you've heard of me, but I've read all of your work. Several times because I couldn't sleep before we went to London and-- Anyhow, it's an honor to meet you." Their young intruder stuck out a hand and Jane shifted her Tachyonimeter to her other hand so she could shake it.

"Aw, Janey, she's a fan," Darcy cooed. "Don't worry, I can get you an autograph. She never pays attention to what I have her sign anyway."

"Really? That would be--" Dr. Simmons blinked and cleared her throat. "I'm not here for that, though. I'm here for Fitz." She pointed at Jimmy, who had started noting down Barometric Spectrometer readings dutifully. Really, Jane thought, he was the best intern she'd ever had besides Darcy.

"Why? He's been here a week. How do we know you can be trusted with him? Obviously you lost track of him and he's not that hard to keep track of. Darcy does it."

"Hey! That doesn't mean it's easy! I mean, it is, you just give him stuff to do and he stays put, but I could keep track of him anyway!"

Dr. Simmons looked a bit pained. "He's my partner. His name is Leo Fitz and he has a PH.D in Engineering."

"Wait, wait, so Jimmy's name is Dr. Fitz? _Cute_. It sounds like something you'd name a pet hamster. Doctor Fitz Von Fluffybutt." Jimmy/Maybe-Fitz huffed at Darcy. "Doctor Fitz Von Huffyfluff," she corrected herself.

"Wait, wait, Leopold Fitz? I've read him," Jane said. "I-- Well, I thought he'd be older." She felt pretty sheepish, since people often said the same thing of her.

"We get that a lot," Dr. Simmons said with a rueful smile.

"This still doesn't explain why you lost Dr. Fitzy here," Darcy pointed out. "He's been super helpful. A lot of our machines go bing at useful times now and they're all super duper accurate and have better range and all sorts of stuff. You didn't put up Lost Engineer posters or anything."

"I'm afraid--"

"It's beyond your security clearance," a man finished. They all turned.

"No. Way." Darcy's jaw dropped.

"Oh _no_. You!" Jane advanced on Agent Coulson, brandishing her finger like a sword. "You get out! There's no more SHIELD, you can't take my things anymore! You didn't answer Darcy's calls in London! You _owe_ us! Out!"

"Hello, Dr. Foster. I am sorry about that. They'd changed my number." He gave her one of his stupid 'how can you blame me, I'm so unassuming' smiles and Jane narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"How can something be beyond our security clearance when there's no SHIELD to clear things?" Darcy asked. 

"He's probably got some other shadow organization now to come in and steal things with."

Coulson held up his hands. "I'd like to point out that you're the ones who stole my engineer."

Darcy made an insulted noise. "We _rescued_ him. Like a lost puppy."

Dr. Simmons had joined Dr. Fitz at the barometric spectrometer and was making notes alongside him, murmuring in an excited tone. Jane started inching toward them, hoping to listen in while still not taking her eyes off Agent Coulson and his research stealing sticky fingers.

"And we're grateful for that. But we do need him back," replied Coulson.

"Sir, this is really very interesting, do you think--?"

"You know we can't stay, Simmons. Step away from the science."

Dr. Simmons looked like she might protest, but changed her mind and sighed, tugging on Dr. Fitz's arm. "Come on, Fitz. We have to get back."

Jane was tempted to protest, but if Dr. Fitz was working for Coulson, maybe it was best he wasn't around her research. Even if he had been extremely useful. Darcy was looking at her with big sad eyes though. She sighed and shook her head and her assistant's shoulders slumped.

"Hey-- Will he be okay?" Darcy asked.

Dr. Simmons' smile was a bit sad, Jane thought, but she nodded. "He's getting better all the time."

"Thank you--" 

Jane interrupted Agent Coulson. "If you say 'for your cooperation', I will let Darcy tase you."

"--for taking care of him," he finished with a small smile. 

"Hey! Can we have your new number?" Darcy asked, pulling out her Starkphone and waggling it at him. "In case of aliens or Nazis? Or, ooh, Nazi aliens?"

"I'll text it to you. We've got a plane to catch."

"Sweet. And you'd better answer next time!"

 

"Whoa," Darcy murmured later, as they sat out beneath the clear starry sky. "Agent Zombie Suit uses emoticons."


End file.
